Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama faced criticism over his foreign policy from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Sunday as he wrestled with crises in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Republican lawmakers seized on Obama's comment on Thursday when he said, "We don't have a strategy yet" for confronting the Islamic State militant group, saying it suggested indecisiveness. On Sunday, influential Democrats chimed in with their own critiques of Obama's foreign policy, chiding him for being "too cautious" on Syria, and urging him to do more to help Ukraine resist Russian advances.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/static/Resizer.ashx/news/468/282/499773.jpg Israeli attacks against US Secretary of State John Kerry accusing him being of a supporter of Hamas are "offensive and absurd," a senior US diplomat said Wednesday. In a sharp exchange with reporters, deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf hit out against a torrent of abuse from "respected voices in Israel talking about the secretary of state, claiming that he supports Hamas, which is offensive and absurd." The United States had been given Israel "a level of support which has been quite frankly unprecedented in our history, even when we stood alone," she added. Kerry has been the subject...

Jul. 29, 2014 - 4:32 - Amb. John Bolton weighs in on cease-fire negotiations

PARIS -- There's no faster or easier way to shut down legitimate debate than to slap an undesirable label on someone based on their views. Criticize same-sex marriage and you're a bigot. Take issue with immigration policy and you're dismissed as a racist. In the latest incarnation of this phenomenon, any conservative who dares to criticize U.S. President Barack Obama's stance against Russia on the issue of Ukraine runs the risk of being called a Putin-loving communist. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested this week that Republican lawmakers may have helped Russia annex Crimea by delaying a vote on aid...

In a rare move, Secretary of State John Kerry protested to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday over Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon's strong criticism of US foreign policy, according to AFP. Ya'alon slammed the US and the West on Tuesday for its "soft" approach toward the possibility of a nuclear Iran. "Everyone knows Iran is lying," Ya'alon stated. "But the pampered West is satisfied with postponing conflict [with Iran over the nuclear program]." Ya'alon's comments made headlines in Israeli media Tuesday evening over his perceived change of heart regarding the Iran issue - and apparently have also drawn the...

Martin Gottfried, a drama critic and the author of several biographies of entertainers and playwrights as well as two influential studies of the Broadway musical, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 80.

Bob Woodward appeared on Media Buzz with Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz Sunday to talk about his book “The Price of Politics’”and the issues facing the Obama administration in its second term. Woodward claimed that people inside the White House are blaming him for the recent wave of criticism directed at the Obama administration. As for the mood inside the White House after the failed rollout of Obamacare, Woodward stated, “the temperature’s going up right now as there’s more and more criticism on the president’s comments on Obamacare.”

WASHINGTON - President Obama says a tumultuous month as commander in chief, when his policy toward Syria took a number of unexpected turns, may not have looked "smooth and disciplined and linear," but it's working. "I'm less concerned about style points. I'm much more concerned with getting the policy right," Obama told ABC's George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview on "This Week." Obama said his surprise announcement on Aug. 31 that he would seek congressional authorization for U.S. military strikes against Syria, then the abrupt cancellation of a vote this week and pursuit of a diplomatic plan led by the...

You can always count on the White House to react strongly to “internal” threats. Yes, the folks who could care less who is blowing up whom in Syria, Libya or Boston, takes people who snitch on them very seriously. Their newest weapon is a program called “Inside Threat,” which, according to McClatchy, is designed not to just to clamp down on classified leaks, but rather to make sure ANY unauthorized disclosure of ANY information that make them look bad will leave a mark on the miscreant leaker. Given the proclivities of the administration to impale themselves on the sharp edge...

The director of a documentary on fracking has withdrawn from a conference hosted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Oxford University after organizers refused to screen a clip from his film that was critical of Russia. Phelim McAleer, the co-director of FrackNation, was scheduled to screen clips from his film at a conference on international commodity prices being held Wednesday and Thursday at IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C. However, organizers informed McAleer that one of the clips concerning Russia’s manipulation of Eastern Europe’s gas supply would not be shown. McAleer withdrew from the conference as a result and told...

Republican Sen. John McCain’s tweet comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a monkey is drawing criticism from a fellow GOP lawmaker (Justin Amash) as racist. On Monday, McCain wrote, “So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space—wasn’t he just there last week?” …

Surely, progressives will celebrate the artistic genius in this exhibit. Or, will they cry out that their savior has been defiled?

November 15, 2012 Romney and McCain slam Obama As President Obama spent his first post-election press conference saying that he wanted to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans, he found himself debating two former GOP presidential contenders: Mitt Romney, who blamed his defeat in part on Obama’s “gifts” to supporters, and Sen. John McCain, who pledged to block a possible nomination of Susan Rice as secretary of state. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

Judith Crist, one of America’s most widely read film critics for more than three decades and a provocative presence in millions of homes as a regular reviewer on the “Today” show, died Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 90.

Photographer Joe Klamar has become the target of much scrutiny—and in some cases, ire—ever since the series of portraits he shot of U.S. Olympic team athletes was published by CBS News. The criticism is that the photographs fall short: they’re underwhelming both visually and from a technical point of view, especially when you consider that the occasion they represent (the Olympic Games!) has likely been a lifelong dream for these athletes. Not that you can tell from these awkwardly lit and posed shots. Also, note the torn seamless paper.

Andrew Sarris, one of the nation’s most influential film critics and a champion of auteur theory, which holds that a director’s voice is central to great filmmaking, died on Wednesday at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan. He was 83.

A YouTube video uploaded on Monday afternoon apparently shows a schoolteacher from the Rowan-Salisbury school district in North Carolina informing a student that failing to be respectful of President Obama is a criminal offense. The video shows a classroom discussion about the Washington Post hit piece about Mitt Romney bullying a kid some five decades ago. One student says, “Didn’t Obama bully someone though?” The teacher says: “Not to my knowledge.” The student then cites the fact that Obama, in Dreams from My Father, admits to shoving a little girl. “Stop, no, because there is no comparison,” screams the teacher....

It took me until now to respond to the poem, What Must Be Said, by Günter Wilhelm Grass. I, a literary critic, am not as quick on the draw as Shas' Eli Yishai who declared the Nobel Prize winning octogenarian a persona non grata. Instead, I like to think about the lyric, let it soak in. See where it takes me. Given, the language in this particular piece does not induce much philosophizing. First I had to consider the genre under which the writer is commonly filed: Vergangenheitsbewältigung, an artistic movement seeking to make sense of Deutschland's confusing past. It...

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One of the oddest things about modern culture is the tendency to criticize others for the act of criticism. Imagine a man sitting on the end of a tree branch. He looks around at others, telling them that they shouldn’t cut off their branches. Meanwhile, this man is sawing his own branch off. That is the image I have in mind when people criticize others for criticizing others, or judge others for judging others, or tell people not to believe in telling others what not to believe. It is very odd and confusing. It’s like watching people drive a car...